centre

I got up at 5am and hitch-hiked to Frankfurt for picking up my passport with – hopefully – the Russian visa inside. Fortunately I got both without problems, with made me very happy.

After a little walk along the river Main, I got on the train to the airport and tried to get some sleep there.

Unfortunately other than at Munich Airport Frankfurt didn’t have the possibility of free coffee, but at least I got two meals on the Lufthansa flight to Kyiv, which was the last plane that departed that day from Frankfurt Airport.

Day 2, 8.4.2014, Kyiv, Kyiv-Kerch

The plane arrived with a delay at Boryspil Airport and I took the city bus at 2.50am to Kyiv main station. There I stored my backpack and walked straight to Maidan Nezalezhnosti.

Of course at this time it was dark and after I turned into the street to Maidan, I could already see the barricades. It was scary to see them in reality: all the tires, wood and metal bars, the tents and barrels with burning fire inside created an intimidating atmosphere. I didn’t dare to take photos although the people who were walking by didn’t seem to care at all.

At daylight everything seemed less dramatic. Cars passed some blockades and ordinary people walked across Maidan to their working place.

I saw mostly 40+ y.o. men in the tents and often ambulances heading for Maidan. There were many posters connecting Russia with 3rd Reich and fascism or Putin with hitler (Putler). Some called for peace, others for an end of Russian propaganda.

At 1.30pm I entered the overnight train from Kyiv to Sevastopol receptively Kerch, where I was heading to.

Day 3, 9.4.2014, Kerch, Shcholkine

At 1.20am Ukrainian soldiers went through the train and checked the passports and at about 3am look-alike Russian soldiers – they wore military clothes, but I couldn’t see any Russian flag only a little plastic card at their chest which I wasn’t able to read – came in. The guy checking my passport seemed astonished. I had an invitation from L. in Sevastopol but was on the train to Kerch, which is on the other side of Crimea. So I told him “I: Kerch-Sevastopol-Kyiv-Germania”, though he had to ask another guy before he returned my passport without a stamp. Probably I was one of the first foreigners who visited Crimea.

In Kerch I walked to the very outskirts and started hitch-hiking to Shcholkine at Cape Kazantyp to an abandoned nuclear power plant. Four plants were planned there, but after the catastrophe of Chernobyl constructions were stopped.

When I arrived at 3pm the sun was still high due to Moscow time (UTC +4), I pitched my tent and read for some time.

The nuclear power plant and area of its was “guarded” by very poor people who didn’t let the dogs out but me in only for a fee of some Euro. There lived a couple of persons. Two seemed to live in an old iron caravan and others with animals like horses and goats in a administrative building.